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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039816">Absolution</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/umashika/pseuds/umashika'>umashika</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Great Pretender (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, M/M, Post-Case 4: Wizard of Far East, Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, it's romantic but also not really so beware</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:20:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,880</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/umashika/pseuds/umashika</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurent finds him half dead and emaciated in a back alley of Kyoto.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edamura Makoto &amp; Laurent Thierry, Edamura Makoto/Laurent Thierry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Absolution</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Tw: suicidal ideation, self-destructive behaviors, alcohol abuse, panic attacks</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent finds him half dead and emaciated in a back alley of Kyoto. It was the middle of winter, but Makoto was dressed only in a t-shirt and jeans, slouched against a dumpster behind a massage parlor. The only sign of life was smoke rising off a cigarette that rested between his fingers. His hair, which Laurent remembered having a mind of its own, hung around his face in greasy clumps. He smelled like shit, too.</p><p>Laurent found the scene painfully nostalgic.</p><p>Makoto gave him half a glance before leaning his head back and closing his eyes, resigned. “Fuck’s sake,” Makoto croaked in that funny accent of his. Laurent’s customary smile stretched into a grimace, worry pulling at the corners of his lips. He watched his breath disappear in the cold air and shifted his weight from heel to heel. Sleet started to puddle around his shoes.</p><p>When it became apparent that was all he was going to get, he started to shrug off his outer layers. Crouching down, filth seeping into his thousand-dollar jeans, Laurent draped his coat around the other. “Let’s get you somewhere warm,” he murmured, though Makoto looked like couldn’t care less.</p><p>Laurent wasn’t exactly used to being ignored – the hand he extended went entirely unacknowledged – but Makoto didn’t put up a fight when he picked him up. Small victories.</p><p>Laurent touched him gingerly, taking care not to jostle his charge. He looped his arms around Makoto’s legs and lay him over his shoulders. Makoto was always skinny, but Laurent could feel his hip bones jutting into his back; he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. He stamped out the cigarette and gripped his legs a little tighter.</p><p>For his part, Makoto let himself drift off in the other’s arms, hoping that maybe this was it.</p><p>_____</p><p> </p><p>Makoto came to in a warm bath. He saw his clothes in a heap on bathroom tile and steam fogging mirror above the sink before he registered the washcloth running along his arm. Bruises littered his body, and he was pretty sure his ribs were broken. There was a dull ache between his temples, and Makoto didn’t find it in himself to move at all.</p><p>Laurent was gentle with him, achingly so. Makoto remembered the way he fixed his suit for him in Los Angeles years ago, all big hands and sex. This was different. He let himself be dressed in soft linens, be laid on a huge bed, let Laurent kneel and dry his feet. His consciousness floated somewhere up in the corner of the hotel ceiling, watching Laurent prop him up and trickle water down his throat.</p><p>He thought about a million things to say and thought about how much effort it would be to put a voice to them. Instead, he looked on as Laurent brushed his hair, clipped his nails, pressed a piece of soft bread to his lips.</p><p>After leaving Akemi and the Suzaku corporation behind, Makoto had tried to live that honest, lawful life. He toured around the world for a while, got lost in flavor notes and roasting times. He thought a schedule – a real job, for real this time – would even him out. But it always came back somehow.</p><p>In Brazil, he threw up on a waiter’s shoes after being served a soup that tasted like eating for the first time in three days. The billboard in Vietnam advertising the brand of ramen he shared with the man in the security room nearly made him crash his rental car. And he saw that floral pattern in every crowd, in every corner of the world, too familiar to be a coincidence.</p><p>Less than a year after they had all parted ways, Makoto came undone. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, smoked three packs a day.</p><p>As an auctioneer he was damned good at his job: He could read the subtlest of expressions, could predict what his mark would do next and what would push them over. As a civilian, this skill went into overdrive. Everything in Makoto’s life started to feel too convenient too contrived, like an inevitability. Friendly baristas and spam calls, all of it started to feel like a sign. He wasn’t sure who was waiting on the other side – his father, the yakuza, a child come to take belated revenge. He figured it was only a matter of time.</p><p>He’d only hoped it wouldn’t be Laurent who would come for him at last, but. It was only ever Laurent.</p><p> </p><p>At some point, Makoto realized he had been left by himself. He vaguely recalled Laurent saying something about making a call, but it was beyond his capacity to fully remember or to care.</p><p>Once alone, the tears came unbidden. From what Makoto wasn’t sure. He was too tired to do anything about it except take deep, shuddering breaths. He had the sense to try to be quiet, although everything sounded far off. If he stayed still and silent, he thought, near-hysterical, maybe life would forget about him and move on. Like bears, or fake FBI agents shooting at him in a warehouse strewn with drugs and the bodies of his friends. His ribs ached. Was that his laugh? The shivering wasn’t stopping, as if the December chill clung somewhere past the bone. Everything was too bright and too dark and too soft and too quiet and too much and not at all.</p><p>Either the chattering of his teeth or his cries were loud enough to call the other back into the room. Laurent strode in, still infuriatingly calm. He took his place in a bedside chair, where he’d tended to him for hours. Or days? Makoto wasn’t sure of much at all.</p><p>“Is it too cold? What can I get you?” Laurent leaned toward the bed, brow furrowed, the picture of concern. “It’s ok. You’re ok. Safe now” He cupped Makoto’s head in his large hands, wiping away tears with his thumbs. “Oh, oh Makoto.”</p><p>This was familiar, this he knew how to do. “F-fu-fuck, you,”. His chest was heaving, Makoto couldn’t get a breath in. “Lea-ve me the fuck alone, you stup-id bastard.” He couldn’t stop crying. Why couldn’t he stop crying? “Oh god,” he gasped, “oh god.”</p><p>Makoto so desperately wanted to sleep rather than riding out whatever the hell he was feeling, and yet. He hated himself for leaning into Laurent’s embrace, clinging to his shoulders. The arms around him were heavy, but goddamn it if they weren’t warm.</p><p>With the curtains drawn, the hotel room had no cues to mark the passage of time. Laurent smelled like expensive cologne and stale beer, he noticed in a moment of lucidity. At some point – he wasn’t sure when – Laurent had transitioned to kneeling by the bed. Makoto wondered if it was uncomfortable.</p><p>He had no idea how long it took for him to come down, except by the sizeable stain on Laurent’s shoulder. Ever so slowly, in the arms of the person he thought he hated most, Makoto started to come back to himself.</p><p>He made himself feel the plush blanket under him, feel the stretch of dry skin across his hipbones, hear the rattle of the heater and the faint sounds of construction outside the window. Soreness, from god knows what, radiated up from his legs all over his body. He gave his joints an experimental roll – something in his right ankle was fucked. There was another headache coming on, stronger this time.</p><p>Feeling him shift, Laurent pulled him a little tighter into his chest before letting go. He looked over him with unbridled affection and concern. Feeling those blue eyes trained on him, Makoto stilled immediately. He could hear their owner inhale sharply. <em>Oh?</em> He wondered if Laurent liked him like this, pliant and docile, or if he liked him a little more lively.</p><p>Sliding his hand from Makoto’s shoulder, Laurent pushed aside his hair and leaned closer. Makoto squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the air out of his lungs. Laurent lingered there, hot breath tickling his eyebrows.</p><p>Slow as molasses, Laurent’s head drifted down, down, until lips hovered over lips. Makoto didn’t dare move an inch, suddenly aware of how heavy his heartbeat felt and the flush creeping up his chest. Eyes still closed, he imagined what Laurent must look like – his eyes would be open, of course, and from the heat he could feel emanating off him, there couldn’t be more than an inch between them. Makoto wondered what expression Laurent was wearing, if he was playing the part of the lover well.</p><p>And then, the moment stretched too thin. Long enough for second thoughts. Like a string had been cut, Laurent leaned back and petted Makoto’s hair instead. The change startled Makoto more than if Laurent kissed him. His mind started to race again, familiar thoughts sloshing around his skull. <em>What made him stop? What does he see that I don’t? How much of this was planned?</em> And, disgustingly, <em>Does he even like me?</em></p><p>Makoto could feel Laurent’s touch move down his neck, shoulders, arms, finally coming to clasp his hands. Trembling, useless hands.</p><p>Makoto hated his hands, though Laurent’s were a close second – he fantasized about cleaving them clean off. When he had access to running water, he scrubbed them no less than fifteen times a day, letting the skin split and scab over.</p><p>“I’ve always loved your clever fingers,” Laurent lovingly traced circles around each knuckle. “I wonder how many wallets you’ve snatched with these,” he chuckled, slotting their fingers together.</p><p>“Who the fuck cares.” Makoto rasped. “What do you want from me?”</p><p>Laurent bowed his head and pressed the tops of Makoto’s fingers to his forehead. “Nothing, nothing. I’m not asking anything of you” Kneeling by the bed like that, Laurent almost looked like he was praying.</p><p><em>Bullshit.</em> Makoto would laugh if his ribs didn’t hurt.</p><p>“What were you doing out there? You could have died. Japan’s number one scam artist rotting behind a dumpster doesn’t suit you, no? Why didn’t you call Cynthia or Abby? Or this old French bastard? We’re here for you, Edamame.” Laurent broke out his old nickname with a wan smile. “We miss you.”</p><p><em>Don’t ask me questions you know the answer to. As if you weren’t following me this whole time. As if you couldn’t have stepped in at any moment.</em> Makoto does his best to push aside his anger. He’s not going to lose it again, not in front of him. “How long are you gonna keep me here?”</p><p>“We–I, I’m not trapping you here” Laurent sighed, shoulders sagging. “But you shouldn’t leave until you’ve recovered some strength.”</p><p>“So I can’t leave.” Makoto feels the rage pressing up behind his ribs and his head is throbbing.</p><p>“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Makoto. You’re sick and you need-" It’s unlike Laurent to stutter like this, Makoto thinks. “You need to recover.”</p><p>Makoto smiles and it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s no fun fucking patients, I get it.”</p><p>He stares back up at the ceiling and tries not to cry again. Laurent looks entirely miserable and Makoto can’t even bring himself to enjoy it.</p><p>“You need rest. I’ll let you sleep.” Laurent stands up and Makoto doesn’t watch him go.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aha i dont think those 2 are very healthy 2gether<br/>also this is my first fic in years! its very fun</p></blockquote></div></div>
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